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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Pueblo who wrote (104822)	12/7/2000 8:03:40 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 769670

Every vote will be counted. Published Thursday, December 7, 2000, in the Miami Herald Watchdog group's tally of disputed votes starts today BY LISA ARTHUR larthur@herald.com A Washington, D.C.-based conservative group today will begin to count ballots cast by Broward voters in the presidential election. Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, will cast an outsider's eye on the ballots to ''give people an independent accounting of the numbers and the process,'' said Tom Fitton, president of the group. The group is known for, among other things, representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno involving alleged rights violations in the raid that removed Elián González from his relatives' Little Havana home. ''We're not partisan; we're not going in on behalf of a candidate or party,'' Fitton said of the group's ballot-counting endeavors. ''All sides don't want us around. Everybody objected to us.'' Judicial Watch filed lawsuits against Palm Beach, Broward and Volusia counties seeking to gain access to the ballots, and plans to sue Miami-Dade for access as well, Fitton said. It asked to count ballots in all 67 of the state's counties, and access was granted in most. The group started counting in Palm Beach County, but the effort was halted when Leon County Circuit Judge Sanders Saul ordered ballots from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties transported to Tallahassee. Broward's ballots were impounded as part of the same lawsuit, but they have been released, said David Beirne, assistant to the Broward Supervisor of Elections. Besides Judicial Watch, seven media organizations, including The Herald, have asked for access to the Broward ballots to count or inspect them, Beirne said. An elections office staff person must monitor each group as it inspects and counts ballots to ensure the ballots are not harmed. ''I think most groups are going to want to look at the [6,000] challenged ballots from the recount,'' Beirne said. Overall, 587,928 ballots were cast in Broward on Nov. 7. Fitton said he expects Judicial Watch will have 10 people on the job this morning, with an accounting firm supervising the process.